The problems that bedevilled the project continued. Strong upper headwinds meant the Hastings with its doom-laden cargo didn’t have the fuel for the final leg and was grounded for three days. On Christmas Island there was a food-poisoning outbreak just as the dress rehearsal for the bomb test was getting under way. And in Britain a vital component for the bomb was lost after a motorbike courier transporting it from Aldermaston was involved in a traffic accident.
But the incident that really set teeth on edge occurred after the Hastings, with the radioactive core slung in a harness in the cargo hatch, finally arrived on Christmas Island. As the technicians gingerly removed the lead-lined casing, it was found the explosive shell around the highly unstable nucleus was cracked. Engineers discovered the temperature control in the bomb bay of the courier aircraft had malfunctioned causing a sudden drop in temperature which split the delicate casing. Cook, thought about sending for a replacement, but there was no time.
He went to talk things over with the Task Force Commander for Grapple, Air Vice Marshal Wilfred Oulton. The pair, both pipe-smoking throwbacks of a more genteel age, discussed the problem over a ‘couple of large ones’ in Oulton’s quarters. Finally one of the technicians came up with a solution: Bostik glue. There was a stunned silence and the blood drained from Oulton’s ruddy features. The unflappable Cook took a long pull on his pipe before, with a resigned shrug of his shoulders, told the man to go ahead. Oulton, shocked at the thought of Britain’s first H-bomb being held together with household glue, replenished their glasses.
At 10.44am on May 15th, 1957, the weapon, codenamed Short Granite, was released from Valiant bomber XD818 piloted by Wing Commander Kenneth Hubbard. It was dropped from a height of 45,000 feet, and exploded at about 8,000 feet, one and a half miles offshore from Malden Island. It was an impressive sight and newsreels released by the government were soon trumpeting the success of Britain’s first H-bomb test. But the scientists were disappointed: the yield of just 300 kilotons, was not the megaton range they had promised. Whitehall knew the test didn’t have enough clout to persuade the Americans to share their nuclear secrets; the mandarins were stung by one influential American senator who in private conversations derisively dismissed the British efforts as like trying to trade “a rabbit for a pony…”
The operation was further overshadowed by a tragic accident involving the Canberra aircraft carrying vital cloud samples from the bomb burst back to Britain. It crashed in a blizzard coming into land to refuel at Goose Bay, Newfoundland. Two pilots were killed. The Canberra was a PR.7 of No 58 squadron whose Order of Record Book recorded that the accident occurred “during a final approach in inclement weather at Goose Bay on 16th May, 1957. Pilot Officer J.S. Loomes and Flying Officer T.R. Montgomery sustained fatal injuries.”
According to the ORB the Canberra had arrived over its destination at 48,000 feet after a 4hr 22 min flight. Its crew, under orders to get the samples back to the UK as quickly as possible, had had no proper sleep in the previous 26 hours and no meal for the previous 18 hours. The accident was kept secret to avoid an outcry, but Penney was mortified and sent a letter to the head of the RAF. He wrote:-
I am writing to let you know how very much I and my senior staff regret the loss of the Canberra off Newfoundland, particularly as the flight concerned was in connection with the return of our samples from Grapple. We are all the more distressed by this loss because of the truly admirable effort which your Service has made in connection with these trials. I have to write this in confidence because I understand no connection between the accident and the trial is being released.
Air Vice Marshall Oulton, was worried more than most by this latest setback to the Grapple operation. An irrational fear, truly alarming in its implications, was growing in his mind, a fear that would later lead to some of his contemporaries to doubt his sanity.
Put simply, the problems that had beset the first Grapple explosion and those that bedevilled later ones, seems to have led to a bizarre conviction in Oulton’s mind that the operation was being sabotaged by supernatural forces.
THE WITCH’S CURSE
This alarming fixation started to take hold after Oulton’s second-in-command, Air Commodore Cecil ‘Ginger’ Weir walked into Oulton’s tent one morning swinging a strange looking object which he casually explained (no doubt tongue in cheek) was a ‘Witch’s Curse’. Weir explained that the device, a stick with a small, yellowish skull stuck on the end, was being confidentally blamed by airmen for a series of mishaps on Shackleton aircraft en route from Britain to Christmas Island.
The legend emanated from the airfield in Northern Ireland where the Shackletons were based, and an adjoining mountain which was rich in spine-tingling tales of highway robbers, murderers, sorcery and witchcraft. The airfield was Ballykelly near Londonderry, and the adjoining mountain was called Binevenagh, but nicknamed ‘Ben Twitch’ by nervous airmen who had to navigate around its perilous slopes often in bad weather and poor visibility. The airfield had a bad reputation: on one day alone, four aircraft were lost in various crashes after taking off from Ballykelly, adding to the superstitions already associated with the area.
During Operation Grapple the airfield was the main base for the aircraft used to supply Christmas Island. The story was that in the early days of the operation a young ground crew technician due to fly to Christmas Island was walking on Ben Twitch when he came across an unusual object, a small yellowish skull with a hardwood stick firmly stuck through the top. He idly picked it up and strolled into the village of Limavady where he went for a drink in a local public house. Swinging the stick to and fro, the technician enquired of the assembled company if anyone knew what the strange object was. There was a sharp intake of breath all round, and he was informed the object was a ‘Witch’s Curse’, a very powerful device which should be handled with great care.
The technician, much amused, decided to take the object with him to Christmas Island to liven things up, as he had heard life out there was pretty dull. As he boarded the plane the following morning he threw the stick together with his bag into the baggage rack at the back. Oddly, there were troubles with the flight from the beginning. The aircraft was beset by technical problems and was delayed for four days. It was then struck by lightning, the radio and radar were knocked out, and two engines failed nearly causing a crash.
By the time the aircraft reached Christmas Island, the ‘Witch’s curse’ had become the talk of the squadron. In exasperation, the Chief Technical Officer, Wing Commander Ron Boardman, confiscated the device and took it to his superior Air Commodore Weir, who was much intrigued. After a spot of banter, Boardman retired and Weir absently tapped the object on the edge of his desk as he contemplated his charts on the wall. As he did so, he heard a small and unusual noise which he eventually traced to his wristwatch, a beautiful Omega which had been a wedding present from his wife, 25 years ago. Something in the escapement had broken and the hands were whizzing round.
Weir was amazed and excitedly took the device to show a wide-eyed Oulton, and suggested it be taken on the next ‘live’ drop and dumped at sea, “to help the explosion”. Oulton, didn’t see the joke, and was having none of it: “No! Absolutely not!” he cried in alarm. “I’m not going to tempt fate.” Weir was instructed to take “the thing” away and get rid of it.
This was an odd reaction from the military commander in overall charge of Britain’s most devastating secret weapon. The supernatural, most people would expect, featured rarely in military circles. But many RAF pilots, especially during the war, were known to be extremely superstitious and often carried charms of various kinds with them on sorties. Oulton was no exception, and it was well known he was a firm believer in fate which stemmed from his childhood.